Jays or Fall Leaves?

This afternoon I took a long walk in the park. The leaves were lovely against the wet dark branches. Later I sat on the deck and photographed the birds. Even though the ISO was astronomical I had to choose the jays. That fellow on the left really cracks me up. So here are yet another crazy pair of jays fighting over peanuts.

I'm saving many of the jay photos right now to use as subjects for my paintings. I hadn't thought I'd ever want to paint them, but we are doing a new project in open studio and I volunteered to be one of the painters in the show. Similar in idea to our Edvard Munch show a few months ago, this one will be related to the work of Gaylen Hansen. At first I thought of cats and codgers (me and Arvin). But then I thought about those whacky jays and realized that was a rich vein to mine for this particular project. This photo may very well factor in, especially the fellow on the left. Love all that motion.

I had a very interesting long chat with a Alexandra from the Atomic Heritage Foundation this morning about my parents and our time in Los Alamos. I sent her some photos and a copy of my mother's book The Atom and Eve. I am sure we will talk again. The time flew by as we talked. It is very satisfying to me that this organization is gathering information on all the members of the community and all workers on the project. At some point Alexandra said they will come to Washington and interview me and my brothers for the oral history part. That sounds great.

Quiet evening tonight for Arvin and me. He would love to go out but I'm settled here. It is cold and rainy outside so a quiet evening inside sounds brilliant to me.